Category: Music Journal

After more than half a year of freeze in our jamming session (drummer got engaged and guitarist got hitched), we proposed to resume our music creation on none other than the National Day of Singapore. Now, prior to this week, I have been practicing hard in vocal and also made readjustment to the chords. Today, I jammed with our bassist Cynthia and gosh … we were so not used to the chords! And Cynthia just realized that she needs to get her bass set up quite urgently.
Arrggh.

Edit: Alright, Jason has not gotten hitched as per se. But it is really close I reckon … hahaha. I have got to clarify this because one of our mutual friends MSN me after reading my blog.

I know it’s too early to give such an award but given the rarety of the occassions, I doubt – but certainly sincerely hope – that such a day keeps popping out from my life. At work, I’ve closed one project and closed one deal in record time. Basically for both meetings, cut away all the hi-how-are-you’s, they lasted less than 10 minutes. For the second meeting on business deal, I have left the meeting room before even having a chance to drink that package of sugery drink that the clients provided.

Back home, I have begun my routine practice on recording my vocal tracks. Wanted to give up halfway but I have persisted (tempted by World of Warcraft all the time and besides, at times I did not do that well). Tired after 3.5 hours of practicing, wanted to play online game. But since Jason is so keen on creating this concept album (or EP – extended play – because of the number of songs), I said to myself, if not today, when?

Started writing songs from 9.30pm. I have to admit that my voice was a bit tired after extended practicing. Plugged in my electric classic guitar, the first song was out in less than half an hour! I was so excited because I have not been writing for a long time. The last serious batch of songs were written back in Indonesia during Christmas and one casually written song (surprisingly Cynthia likes it) about more than a month ago.

After written the first song – a fast song – using some familiar chords, I have switched to a slow one experimenting different chords. The process continued with me experimenting a different lyrics style on the third fast song. Back to another slow one with some 7th chords. I have got to confess the process got harder and harder as I entered into early morning of the night. My fingers were numb and my voice was nearly gone. One good thing about technology nowadays is that I can theorectically keep writing songs non-stop because I can record all the chords and melody on the fly. In the past, I need to transcript the music notes as I proceed. Now, just record and move on. The flip side is of course I tend to be worn out a lot faster.

The last song of the set was the most difficult one to write. After coming out four songs of different styles, I was running low in creativity on how to make the last song different from the rest.

The most number of songs I have written in a single 24-hours day is two. And for the hundred over songs I have written in the last 10 years, I can only recall 2 days when that happened. So much I wanted to give up but I was worried that if I stopped, I would have lost the momentum and lost the concept. Hence I pressed on and completed the last song borrowing the existing No Eye Candy style. This concept album or EP will not be complete without the last song.

Overall, I am very pleased with the results and the variety of the five songs.

When I started playing World of Warcraft (WoW), I was worry that I may drop my passion of recording and moved onto online gaming. After all, this seems to be a common pattern in my life. Last night arrived home from work early, I was contemplating on whether or not I shall start recording the vocal tracks of my new songs or to play WoW. In the end, I have spent three hours recording instead.

The fun part was that I have finally come to term with my demon within and recorded the vocal track for the song Jealousy. This recording is for my band and not for the new songs that I have written lately. My band has finished recording the instrumental tracks for this close to 17 minutes song nearly two months ago. I have never got the courage to record the vocal track because I was still trying to improve on my technique. I did it last night and have reluctantly (after much persuasion) pass the demo track to Jason. Eager to hear his feedback.

I remember when I was young teaching myself how to play piano, I would start practicing with my left hand for hours and then my right and then tried to play both hands at the same time. The moment I got it, the feeling was as though I was up in heaven. I would just keep playing the same piece again and again for hours. Still remember my mother doing housework or cooking while I played my piano. That was high, very high.

I remember when I was recruited into the Hong Kong Youth Orchestra playing clarinet. My friend and I were the only ones from the same school and playing the second clarinet (the first was for the best and there were two girls playing the third). Most of the time, both of us were at a lost and one thing good (or no good) about clarinet is that it is not as loud as instruments such as trumpet. Mistakes are not so obvious. I still remember we were playing the Wedding Song and with bars and bars of repetition, we were so utterly lost. But once in a blue moon, we would be able to play some musical pieces along with the orchestra. I remember the excitement, the high.

Today, as I was practicing my set of eight songs that I memorised yesterday, some part of the songs were effortless. I was actually enjoying playing it. Looking out of the window when I was practicing my music, trains passed by, children playing in the playground, swimmers enjoying themselves in the pool, people walking into the condo, people walking out of the condo, the greenery and the beautiful reservoir. I was in such a high. Only God knows.

Attended one internal training by one of my subordinates on the topic of Training (honestly I forgot the exact title). The content was so intense that I can hardly remember all the good stuffs she has presented. What I do remember though is how people memorise stuffs. Now, try not to quote me exactly because after all, she has got a degree on this whatever you call and I don’t. In any case, the training does help me in memorising my songs.

Note: Photo taken at home, Singapore on Dec 8, 2004.

According to her, whatever we have encountered stores in our short term memory. Bear in mine that short term memory has a small capacity (how small I don’t know). That is probably why we don’t remember every single thing that comes across our mind everyday.

The information that is stored in our short term memory can be processed and registered in our long term memory. She mentioned that however, if the context does exist in your long time memory, this process is a whole lot easier.

I guess to put it to my own experience, if I am to read the script of my presentation enough times – that is to say keeping it into my short term memory long enough – chances are the script will be registered into my long term memory if I am persistence enough. Imagine, if the topic of my presentation is on technology or risk management, I can probably do it quite fast. But definitely not on the topic of, say, change management (tried that before). That is what I meant by context in our long term memory.

Throughout the presentation, there was one diagram that I remember most vividly of – when we train someone, we have to assess the intrinsic (the intrinsic complexity of the topic that cannot be simplified) and extraneous (the complexity can be reduced by various ways like remember a phone number by segments) nature of the training topic. Summing up this intrinsic and extraneous values and compares it against the mental resource allows us to see if we train our audience the right way.

Basically, if

(Intrinsic + Extraneous) > Mental Resource

… most likely the audience won’t be able to absorb what you are trying to train. As the intrinsic value cannot be changed because it is the intrinsic complexity of the topic, we shall aim at reducing the extraneous value by various techniques.

Now, how does that relate to my today’s life?

I woke up this morning and said to myself that I have got to memorise my 8 new songs. I have been practicing for days (14 sessions to be exact because I record every session) and my friend TK has already proposed a milestone for me to perform in public by March. I have got to take this to the next level.

I have to confess that I seldom bother to memorise songs. I write songs a lot faster than I memorise songs so why bother? I always feel that memorising songs slows down the entire songwriting process. On the other hands, in order to copy write my songs, I do need to have some form of public performance or broadcast. So I bite the bullet and determine to do the impossible – memorising my songs.

Surprising, I did it at ease. Just a couple of hours in the afternoon, I have memorised all the chords and lyrics of my 8 new songs. I practiced again in the evening and it seems to me that I still remember most parts of the songs.

Amazing!

The 14 sessions must have gone into my long term memory somehow. Don’t forget it’s not just the 14 sessions. I have listened to the recording of each 14 sessions more than once. What amazed me the most was that remembering the lyrics was a bliss. I have got to admit that applying the techniques of reducing the extraneous nature of the songs must have helped.

Wow … I am a happy man!

was just sharing with my friend TK tonight that it is hard to be vocalist. To be able to sing well on any particular day if you are not as gifted as my band members, you’ve got to …

• Stay away from alcohol as it dehydrates you
• Stay away from coffee as, again, it dehydrates you
• Stay away from spicy food as it irritates your throat
• Have enough sleep otherwise your voice will tell
• Have enough exercise otherwise you will easily run out of breath
• Do the 30 mins warm-up exercise prior to any recording or performance
• Last but not the least, drink plenty of water throughout the day because it takes 30 minutes for the liquid to be absorbed and travel to your throat

See, it’s not easy to be a vocalist. Not to forget to mention that some day your voice sounds worse than others and you will feel quite down because of that (again, if you are as gifted as …)

During the Bandung trip, I have come to the realisation that the old songs of mine better kept within myself. Besides, instead of practicing my songs during my stay in Bundung (Indoesian), I have written new songs. So, for this new solo album of mine, why not?

After much consideration, I shall record the latest songs for my friends and families. And there you go, I am now practicing hard on these new songs. Hopefully, my NoEyeCandy band take some of the songs into our band core list.

Interestingly, whenever I listen to my old vocal recording, I always find it horrible. Looking from past to present, it is an improvement. Looking from present to past, it is pure embarrassment. Good thing or not? I would rather be like Cynthia who is born with a good voice and no need to do 30-40 minutes warmup (like I do) before recording.

Just to further elaborate, my band member Jason for instance would politely ask me to lower the key of the song or suggest (sometimes subtlely) someone else to sing the song if he thinks that I can’t make it. And he suggested that Cynthia should sing the high part of the song Jealousy.

Today, I sang the song Jealousy with the new technique I have learnt over the last month (read: I have not been singing that song for a month) through the acoustic amplifier and my new classical guitar. Surprisingly, Cynthia found it ok to listen to. She mentioned that I am relax and consistent. (Just for the record, the last time I sang that song, Cynthia pointed out at least 26 words I went flat. Horrible.)

That is indeed an achievement because to earn that ok (and not great as cautioned by Cynthia) is not at all easy. I guess it is indeed a baby step. I do really want to able to sing the entire song without lowering the key or pass it to another vocalist again (like what I have done for 2 of my songs for the band already). After all, the instrumental track of the 16 minutes and 32 seconds song has been recorded so the key cannot be lowered.

God help me so …

I was contemplating whether or not to record my new songs written while I was in Bandung or to record the song Jealousy that is long overdue. I have decided to finish off the instrumental tracks for Jealousy.

I am so looking forward to finish off the vocal piece. This song will be the classic piece for my band No Eye Candy.

Kathleen Carey is the senior vice president of Song/ATV Music Publishing and in Roger Love’s Set Your Voice Free, her advice for aspiring musicians who would like to make it in the music business was:

“… Most important, stay true to yourself and in terms of expressing your own individual gift, and don’t water it down by listening to what’s on the radio and changing your sound, or tyring to make yourself commercial. Espeically now. A top band today may well be gone in months. So you need to hone your craft in any way you can – as a player, as a writer – and keep your focus on what you can do that is unique. The people who do that are the ones who win in the long run.”

After hearing a number of critism from the serious music listeners, I was much affected and influenced and somehow I could not write for a while. Lately, my songs are more commercially geared and are written well within my vocal range. Instead of letting the song goes freeform, I stick with the usual verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus pattern. Each song I consciously put in a hook that keep repeating throughout the song. I used to think that this pattern is boring is uninspiring but I kind of yield to the critism.

When I shared my recent change in songwriting style with Jeremy, my “band manager”, he said the similiar thing. He said that I should stay with my own style as he do like my freeform stuffs.

If only I can find a balance somehow …